Flexknowlogy – Jared Stein

Late last week I spent some energy questioning and answering my current understanding of dual-coding theory and it’s distinction between verbal and non-verbal, vs. visual and non-visual (more…)

Pavio distinguishes between verbal and non-verbal information as a basis for dual-coding theory–an important concept for educators designing and developing learning media. The distinction between these categories is clear to me, but during a class discussion today it seemed I was in the minority (more…)

University of Wisconsin – Extension hosts what I think is a pretty thorough introduction to evaluation logic models, a topic that grabbed my attention when first encountered in the Fitzpatrick, Sanders, and Worthen textbook “Program Evaluation”. In addition to resources and examples, the UWEX site includes a complete lesson module on logic models. Unfortunately the materials are not open licensed.

I’ve written very briefly and meekly shared with a few close colleagues my interest in the role of solitude in learning–especially in context of modern networked communication media–i.e. the web. Recently I’ve begun to consider how metacognitive strategies figure into a view of the learner as a necessarily solitary figure and as a (even occasional) member of a learning community). I read an article this week past weekend that sparked some ideas (more…)

Wikipedia had no article on Benjamin Bloom’s 2 sigma problem (1984), and virtually no references to the observed phenomena or related studies, so I drafted one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_Sigma_Problem.

It’s little more than a stub right now, but I plan to come back to it, and I trust others–especially those in Jon Mott’s IP&T 692R course, “The 2 Sigma Problem”–will contribute to and expand the article.

We’ve used dotProject in my Instructional Design Services unit for almost two years. dP is an open source project management and task tracking tool that has benefited our unit organizationally, and has helped us follow-through on projects in a more efficient manner. It has also helped me as a manager manage staff resources and understand time-to-delivery of common project types.

However, dP is not without its flaws (more…)

I began the following Google Wave yesterday as a means of orienting myself to its functionality and features, but more importantly as a way to move past the more mundane and obvious applications for education. As you will see, I invited a number of colleagues and contacts to join, then made the Wave open to the public (more…)

Those of you who know me personally probably know I’m into skateboarding. The following 4 minute video highlights some efforts to bring skateboarding into K-12 physical education, and even using skating as a gateway to learning about physics and construction. Au-then-tic!

• Watch Video: Skateboarding in Education

As I begin the pilot of our WordPress MU installation for Utah Valley University, questions naturally arise as to expected usage of the system. This led to the idea of running a short survey for students, faculty, and staff that asks if and how they would use such a community publishing platform. I then wondered if students or faculty who already had a blog would use the institutional system as a blog, whether in addition to or as a replacement for their own (even if only to meet a course requirement). This, of course, led me back to the idea of “creepy treehouses” (more…)

Ideas for open access and open educational resources at BYU

It was a gorgeously sweet-smelling rainy day, but I managed to bring
myself into the confines of a BYU classroom to attend David
Wiley's IPT 692R: Intro to Open Education. Today we're looking
at how an institution, BYU in particular, might approach institutional
policy and practice supportive of open licensing of teaching materials
and research publications (more…)